Nasa release shocking global warming data

Lucy Grosvenor

For the past two years temperatures have risen dramatically and data released for February has been dubbed a climate emergency by experts.

The Nasa data shows the average global surface temperature in February was 1.35C warmer than the average temperature for the month between 1951-1980, a far bigger margin than ever seen before. The previous record, set just one month earlier in January, was 1.15C above the long-term average for that month.

The first two months of the year have been globally higher than they were a ten years ago to the point where people are now becoming concerned about the greenhouse gas effect.

This figure may not sound like a big increase but in December the UN climate summit held in Paris decided that 2C would be the danger limit for global warming which should not be passed.

However, the summit and Governments agreed to “pursue efforts” to limit warming to 1.5C.

This is where Greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, which makes the Earth warmer and comes from everyday activities, such as using electricity, heating homes, and driving.

On Twitter, Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which maintains the NASA temperature database, noted that February’s temperature record and commented simply: “Wow.”

NASA’s global temperature data is measured from a 1951-1980 baseline, about 0.3 degrees warmer than pre-industrial levels. That means February 2016 was the first month in history that global average temperatures passed the 1.5 degree Celsius mark.

It took from the dawn of the industrial age until last October to reach the first 1.0 degree Celsius and in the last five months the temperature hjas rocketed.

Speaking online Proffesor Stefan Rahmstorf, from the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research in Germany said: “We are in a kind of climate emergency now.”

A reason behind the rise in temperature could be due to the El Niño effect which is most known for shifting a large pool of warm ocean waters from the western to the central and eastern tropical Pacific. That shift changes where heat is pumped into the tropical atmosphere, disrupting its typical circulation patterns.

The world is currently is the biggest El Niño since 1998.

Global warming also impacts on the polar ice caps which are melting and increasing sea levels which will have world wide implications.